This essay examines Frederick Douglass's "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave" through rhetorical analysis, arguing that Douglass uses ethos and pathos to illustrate the psychological horrors of slavery as distinct from and more damaging than physical cruelty. The paper analyzes three key scenes: Douglass's fight with Covey and the intervention of fellow slave Hughes, the suppression of Douglass's literacy by his master Auld, and Douglass's first act of resistance. Through these examples, the essay demonstrates how Douglass employs rhetoric to expose slavery's systematic destruction of enslaved people's intellect, willpower, and spirit—effects the author argues are more profound and lasting than physical violence.
Numerous authors have written accounts about the horrors of slavery. Some of the most convincing of these accounts were by the enslaved themselves, a fact which is readily underscored by an analysis of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. However, there is a principal point of distinction between Douglass' work and that of other accounts of the iniquities of slavery, which predominantly include the intense physical horrors the institution of chattel slavery produced during the formative years of the United States.
Many accountings of slavery detail the lascivious and rapacious behavior of masters and unspeakable acts of physical cruelty that typified this lucrative practice. However, there were also a number of psychological and mental horrors produced by slavery, the effects of which are perhaps more lasting and profound than those of the former. An analysis of several key scenes in the aforementioned text reveals the nature of these horrors and implies the full extent of the damage that slave masters inflicted upon slaves. Perhaps the most devastating horror that slavery engendered was its propensity to turn peoples of African descent against one another while siding with their oppressor, the slave master, as opposed to siding with their peers, other slaves.
This perversity is demonstrated quite clearly during a point in Douglass' narrative in which he is engaged in a physical encounter with one of his slave masters, Covey, an intensely brutal and physically demeaning man. The pair were fighting on Covey's property when another slave, Hughes, intervened on behalf of Covey—a man who had tortured, brutalized, and likely raped any number of his slaves while ruthlessly working them without remuneration. Of this incident, Douglass writes: "Hughes came, and, while Covey held me, attempted to tie my right hand. While he was in the act of doing so, I watched my chance, and gave him a heavy kick close under the ribs" (Douglass, 1845, p. 62).
The ethos of this scene is particularly disturbing and typical of the perverse nature that slavery produced. In this passage, Douglass commits an act of violence against another African American slave, which would appear contradictory to the course of action for overcoming the ills of slavery. However, he was forced to take this action because that slave—who was equally oppressed and abused by the same oppressor of Douglass and every other slave working for Covey—would rather help his oppressor than a fellow slave. There is a genuine perversity in such behavior on the part of Hughes that illustrates the totality of Covey's dominance and triumph over him. This accounts for the ethos of this passage; Douglass employs such ethos to indicate the extent of the mental effects of slavery and illustrate the horrors it created.
Another one of the most horrific aspects of slavery was the psychological dominance that slave owners were able to assert by suppressing the natural intellect of slaves. Slavery was only able to last as long as it did because slaves were kept ignorant of their conditions and those of the world outside their immediate surroundings. A key way of ensuring these conditions was to prevent them from reading. In the subsequent scene, Douglass has learned some rudimentary reading techniques before his slave master, Auld, prevents him from learning further.
"Mrs. Auld...kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further" (p. 28–29). Douglass employs pathos—an appeal to the emotions of the reader—as the principal rhetorical device in this passage, which is illustrated by the progress he made in reading and in Auld's sudden termination of his lessons. Once Douglass was able to read, he became an activist and abolitionist who championed the end of slavery. Auld's prevention of further instruction in reading was an attempt to arrest Douglass' intellect and utilize such ignorance as the principal means of prolonging slavery, which in turn enabled the psychological, mental, and physical horrors of slavery to continue.
The ultimate expression of the cumulative effect of the psychological, mental, and physical horrors of slavery was that they served to break the spirit and the willpower of the slave, which produces a pernicious effect on an individual and a group of people. The incident in which Douglass reflects upon this aspect of slavery is when he fights his master, Covey, for the first time. Douglass recollects that: "My resistance was so entirely unexpected that Covey seemed taken all aback. He trembled like a leaf. This gave me assurance, and I held him uneasy, causing the blood to run" (p. 62).
This passage again illustrates the unique ethos of chattel slavery. Violence is once again encouraged, largely because of the violent nature of the slave master. However, the truly remarkable aspect of this violence is that this is the first time that Douglass enacted it. Slavery was so perverse, the methods, technologies, and intentions of slave masters were so cruel, that slaves would not even consider resisting them. This sort of ethos indicates how complete the dominance of slave masters was and illustrates the sort of psychological and mental subservience that slaves were accustomed to—which greatly exceeds mere physical horror.
Douglass' narrative brings to life the multitude of vicious horrors that characterized slavery. However, a look at his rhetorical strategies demonstrates that the most unjust of these ills were those that subjugated the minds, spirits, and wills of slaves.
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